Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) told officials during his recent visit to Israel that they are “winning the war,” but “losing the public relations battle.”
The former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who traveled to Israel and the West Bank last month as part of a larger congressional delegation that included House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), spoke at an event on Tuesday to discuss his visit and what he learned from Israeli officials about possible post-war plans.
“I’m not sure that [occupying Gaza] has a good optic to it personally,” McCaul said during an event with the Institute for World Politics and News of the United States. “I think I, as did others, tell them, ‘You’re winning the war, but you’re kind of losing the public relations battle right now and the sooner you get this done [the better.]'”
Through nearly two years of war, which was ignited by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in southern Israel, Israeli forces’ ground and air bombardment have decimated the Gaza Strip and the terrorist organization running the enclave. Hamas still holds about 50 of the 250 hostages it took that day, about 20 of whom are believed to be still alive.
Israeli forces have killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, though that includes both civilians and combatants. Israeli leaders have previously said that there was a 1-to-1 ratio of civilians to terrorists killed, meaning that if that ratio continued, roughly 30,000 civilians would have been killed. Israeli forces have destroyed an overwhelming amount of infrastructure throughout the strip, while the humanitarian conditions have deteriorated to the point that experts have warned about starvation.
Israeli leaders have said they will not allow Hamas to continue governing the Gaza Strip, which it had for nearly two decades before the Oct. 7 attack that left roughly 1,200 Israelis dead. Relevant parties do not agree upon a clear strategy for who will govern Gaza after the war, and Hamas has not agreed to surrender and leave if it meant ending the war.
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Some right-wing Israeli government officials have called for Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and displace the Palestinians from Gaza to other Arab countries. Arab leaders and many Western governments have rebuked these suggestions, arguing that it could amount to a war crime if they’re forcibly removed.
“The other final point that disturbed me a little bit as well, in talking to some of their leadership, was the idea of displacement of the Palestinians to Uganda or other African nations. They say it would be voluntary, that they would pay them money, but I just don’t think, I’m not sure that has a good optic to it,” McCaul said on Tuesday.
The Texas lawmaker then declined to clarify whether Israeli officials specifically informed the delegation that they were thinking about displacing Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip.
The same right-wing Israeli officials who are a part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition also want Israel to annex the West Bank, where violence between Israel and Palestinians has escalated during the war in Gaza.
McCaul said “there’s some international division” within the Israeli government about the West Bank, though he noted that local sheiks he spoke with in Hebron during his trip want to live in peace with Israel and do not support Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank.
Also on Tuesday, Israeli forces carried out their first attack on Qatar: a strike targeting senior Hamas officials in Doha.
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Qatar has housed senior Hamas leaders for years while operating as one of three primary mediators for the Israel-Hamas negotiations amid the war. The U.S. and Egypt are the other two countries that have acted as mediators.
The U.S. and Qatar, which also houses the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, are closely aligned as well. That base, Al Udeid Air Base, came under Iranian attack in June after the U.S. military bombed three of Iran’s nuclear facilities amid the Israel-Iran 12-Day War.
